Puncture in 12v battery

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by berderder, Mar 4, 2025.

  1. berderder

    berderder Junior Member

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    Hi all,

    Amateur move here. I bought a used flooded lead acid Duralast Gold off of Facebook Marketplace. Reads 12.5V, battery case clearly used condition, but pulled out of totaled vehicle. Manufacturer date Feb 2024. Bought for $50.

    What I didn't notice is the high-up-on-the-case puncture you can see in photo below. Maybe this was made with blade to refill battery with distilled water? The puncture only leaks if I squeeze or tilt battery. What do you think, just epoxy it?

    upload_2025-3-4_18-42-7.png
     

    Attached Files:

  2. PriusCamper

    PriusCamper Senior Member

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    12.5 is too low if its fully charged. 12.8 volts or higher after a full charge is my rule. Being up over 13v is what a new one would do.

    If you don't have enough money to buy another battery you might get by with the epoxy briefly but first test it with charging it up all the way outside in a safe place away from a vehicle or a house. And if it is functional, soon as the weather heats up its gonna be way less safe. If it were me, I'd not risk it because you don't know how deep whatever caused that damage went into the pack.
     
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  3. frodoz737

    frodoz737 Top Wrench

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    Do not use that Battery.
     
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  4. JC91006

    JC91006 Senior Member

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    The 2014 Prius uses a sealed AGM battery, because it sits inside the car. A regular lead acid battery is ok if it sits in the engine compartment, but not inside the car.

    You can still bring it to an autoshop and get $10 for the battery as a core. But you shouldn't use it, consider it a $40 loss and get another one
     
    #4 JC91006, Mar 4, 2025
    Last edited: Mar 4, 2025
  5. Tombukt2

    Tombukt2 Senior Member

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    It's flooded lead acid not AGM I didn't even know that was available for this group size but apparently maybe it's another country